Camp
by Double RJ
Summary: This is a short story I wrote for my fiction writing class at Glendale Community College, taking place in a prison camp for young children, where an execution is soon to take place...


The branches of the trees shook slightly, bouncing back and forth by the soft wind. Pine needles that dropped off the shaking limbs to the forest floor were stomped underneath the boots of a tall young man, who walked fast in a straight line towards the wooden bench propped up against one of the taller trees in the area. He sat down and put his hands in his lap. Bored and tired green eyes looked up at the sky. The sun seemed to be glaring down at him from the middle of the sky, and he glared right back. His eyes began to burn from the sunlight, and he put his head back down. He stopped moving and just stared out at the rest of the camp. In the distance he could see some of the other boys kicking pinecones around, running through the grass under the watchful eye of two counselors, who looked as bored as the boy sitting on the bench.

Farther away he could see the lake. The blue-green water was darkly colored, as the shadows of the tall pine trees cast themselves over it. On the bench, the boy wished that the trees, standing next to the yellow cabins and the mess hall offered some shade. He chuckled humourlessly - he also wished that he had a good joint, or his old iPod, but he knew he would not see either of things here. The trees and wind seemed to be against the children in the camp, as they offered no shade to escape from the sun's heat.

The boy's attention turned away from the sun as he noticed one of the counselors suddenly run and tackle one of the boys. The boy yelled and tried to push the counselor off, but his efforts were met with a punch to the face. At the bench, the first boy cringed. He thought about going to his cabin, as the second counselor's hand was inching towards the gun on his hip. He relaxed as the two men dragged the boy away, no doubt to be punished. Looking behind him for a moment, the boy could see the tall iron gate that seperated the boys and girls. He wondered if the girls were treated as harshly as boys - were they beaten and locked in underground cells? The boy would never really know, as the girls and boys were forbidden from interacting at any time, unless the warden had decided an execution was in order. Then they would all go to the other side of the lake and watch together, as a message to both genders to keep on their best behavior.

After a minute, the boy finally got up from the bench. It looked like the two counselors were not coming back. He moved away from the cabins and started walking back into the woods, going farther and farther away from camp. Sometimes he would pretend he was exploring, and pretend that he didn't have the exact location of every tree and rock in the area memorized. Besides, he wouldn't be able to go very far. The twenty-foot tall electric fence that snaked around the entire camp wouldn't let him, or any other child at camp.

"Matt!"

The boy turned around and looked over his shoulder. Another boy was standing there, blonde hair and dressed in the outfit all campers were designated to wear, a simple brown t-shirt and black pants, black boots and a wristband with their crime printed in bold letters. He didn't notice the kid run up to him.

"Matt," the second boy repeated, softer this time.

"What Asher?" Matt Checkler asked. Matt kept his body rigid, his hands in his pockets, but his eyes betrayed his irritation as he glared at Asher. He could hear the pity in his voice.

"You shouldn't just be walking around on your own," Asher said, taking a step forward and stopping, suddenly unsure.

Matt smirked at the action. "I'm not going to bite, if that's what you're worried about," he said.

"Matt," Asher repeated a third time. "I was talking to one of the counselors-"

"You shouldn't have," Matt interrupted, anger seeping into his voice.

Asher continued to speak as if he hadn't heard Matt. "I talked to him, and he said we could appeal to the Warden to overturn his decision. If we asked for an appeal, the Warden would have to postpone for three days. We would have three days to work on-"

"No," Matt said firmly. He turned away from Asher and kept walking forward.

THWAP.

Matt hissed as his head exploded with pain. He rubbed it with his hand, turning back to face Asher. The other boy was no longer sympathetic - now he looked mad.

"Don't you even care?!" Asher shouted. "This is life or death! We have a chance to stop it, and you refuse to take it?"

"What chance?" Matt asked dryly. Asher's hopefulness annoyed him, mocking the hope he didn't have. "I've been here for three years Asher. I'm surprised that this is happening now, instead of about a month after I got to this godforsaken camp. But do you know what I've learned in these three years?"

Matt paused. "Well, first I learned not to trust drug cartels," he quipped, holding up his wrist. DRUG SMUGGLING was printed on the wristband held tight on his arm. "I've also learned that the Warden doesn't give a damn about us. Did you think that he actually listens to appeals? You've only been here for two weeks Asher...this is your first execution, right?"

Asher's face had turned to horror listening to Matt's words. "Y-Yes," he finally stuttered.

"Well, I've seen thirteen executions," Matt said. His eyes narrowed at the memories. "The look of horror you see on a child's face when he is about to die...you don't forget that kind of face Asher,"

"Every single one of them filed an appeal," he continued. The air was still. Asher seemed to be frozen. "You just have to accept it, Asher. Not one of them convinced the Warden not to kill them. What makes you think you'll be able to?"

Asher began to shake, and he put his face in his hands. Matt didn't comfort him. He just waited. Several minutes passed before Asher finally took his hands away. His eyes were watery.

"Then what are you going to do?" Asher whispered.

Matt shrugged. "Don't worry about me," he mumbled, struggling to ignore the fear growing in his stomach. He had been trying to hold it off all day. Matt walked away, leaving Asher to collapse against a tree and begin to cry.

...

Asher's words refused to leave Matt's mind. He silently cursed the younger boy. Before, he had done a perfectly good job of pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind. But now Matt could not stop picturing what was going to happen in just a few hours. His chest ached, and his mind clouded with fear.

Would it hurt?

he thought. _What...what will happen after? Heaven, or hell?_

Matt's slow steps increased in speed. He started to run. His vision blurred as he kept running faster, trying to escape the burning questions going through his mind. _How long would it take? Oh God, please don't let it hurt!_

A sudden smack of yellow in his vision stopped Matt in his tracks. He gasped for air, out of breath. Holding his chest, he looked around. He had run right into one of the ugly cabins. Matt snarled, and hit his hand against the wood of the building. It was so disgusting to look at. The paint was old, and looked like someone had taken piss and vomit and mixed it into a gross paint.

Maybe they did,

Matt thought. _Maybe that damn Warden actually painted these cabins with piss and puke. It would make sense, considering the state of everything else in this damn camp._

Camp. It didn't even deserve to be called a "camp".

Matt had gone to a real camp before, a camp kids could go to to spend their summers when their parents worked and there was no school to keep them occupied. Memories of playing soccer in a dirt field, painting pictures with counselors who were nice and didn't beat the children with clubs and belts, and even a swimming pool. For a brieft moment, Matt actually smiled at the memory.

He hadn't smiled in a long time. The last real smile was years ago, before that awful smuggling job.

He wasn't even a troublem aker. Matt had a nice home. Good parents. He smoked every now and then, but what kid didn't in this day and age? Money problems is what did it. His oh so good parents were having bad money troubles. They were even going to lose their house. So Matt decided to be a hero and get the money himself. Every minute of every hour of every day, he wish he hadn't tried to be a hero. That he hadn't listened to the man with the wierd hat. The man who promised Matt everything...if he helped him out with a little errand.

Matt remembered when he and the others were caught. Someone inside the job had gone to the police. Matt felt infuriated and hoped nothing less than death for whoever sold them out. It wasn't long after that he heard the rat had not recieved any kind of protection or reward - instead, the police gave him a bullet to the back of the head.

He felt a little better after learning that.

Matt could still see the look on his mother's face when he was arrested. It shattered his heart. He wondered what his mother would do when she recieved the news...it was unbearable.

"Damn it," Matt whispered, slamming his fist into the cabin wall. Suddenly he felt tired. He laid his head against the ugly yellow paint, hands at the sides. All he wanted was to fall down and sleep forever.

A bird chirped. Matt's head whipped up, and he squinted at the trees. Birds were rare around here.

Silence.

"Damn it," he repeated.

Matt stiffened - he felt eyes watching him. He glanced over. The fence that seperated the camp was only about six or seven feet away. On the other side was a tall girl. She looked sixteen, like Matt. Her red hair was cut short, but her smile was wide and big. Matt's mind clouded with anger - how dare this girl smile at him, or at all?

"You're him," the girl stated, giggling and pointing at Matt.

Matt stared at her. He immediately thought the girl was insane. It wasn't uncommon for kids to lose their minds locked up in this camp.

"Why you just sitting around?" the girl asked, holding up her hands. She couldn't touch the electrified fence, but she was pretending to. _Nutcase_. "If I were you, I would be getting all the food out of the mess hall as I could...if it were _me_,"

Her smile was like a target, and Matt really wanted to hit it.

"Go away," Matt snarled, clenching his fist.

"But you're just standing there?" the girl asked, tilting her head curiously. "If I were you-"

"Boys and girls aren't allowed to talk," Matt snapped. "But go ahead and keep talking to me. I'd love to see one of the counselors find you and beat your pretty smile in,"

The girl laughed. "Come on, go do something crazy! None of the counselors will look - they'll all ignore you, they'll ignore you because they _all feel sorry for you_-"

"GO AWAY!" Matt shouted.

The redhaired girl just laughed again. Her smile vanished in the next instant, suddenly, and she turned around and walked quickly back into her side of the camp.

Already sensing someone else behind him, Matt turned. A counselor was standing there, looking grim.

"Come on," he said, his voice robotic and cold. "It's time,"

"Thought it wasn't going to be for another few hours," Matt said, dropping his hands.

"It's time," the counselor repeated.

"Don't you guys have families to go home to?" Matt asked. He looked directly into the counselors eyes, challenging him. "Yet you watch a lot of little kids die,"

The counselor didn't respond for a moment. "It's time," the man repeated, quieter this time.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Matt lowered his eyes.

The counselor followed behind him as he joined the large group of children - prisoners - that were being hearded to the other side of the lake.

Where the execution table waited.

...

The prisoners of the camp whispered as they walked. The boys and girls were led around on seperate sides of the lake, all gossiping over what was about to happen.

Matt heard all their whispers. He heard a few of the boys laugh about how idiotic people who get themselves executed are. It didn't mattter to them who it was, if it was a friend - no, as long as they were still alive the boys would just point and laugh.

The worst was hearing the boys who had some humanity in their hearts. Sympathy. The boys who talked about how sorry they were, how awful it was.

Matt grinded his teeth. He he couldn't help but feel angry. Humanity had no place in this camp.

"Poor Matt, poor Matt, poor Matt,"

The words seemed to repeat endlessly.

He wanted to scream, and tell those boys to shut up. But he couldn't speak, or else all his fears and anger and sorrow would escape. Matt would be crying and screaming if that happened, screaming until his voice gave out or a counselor slit his throat out of irritation.

A few feet away, Matt saw Asher. The younger boy's eyes were puffy and red. He was visibly shaking. Matt turned away, fighting the urge to go and comfort him. It wouldn't do either of them good.

Eventually, the entire camp gathered on the other side of the lake.

The execution table was a wooden platform, about twenty feet long and expanding from the beach onto the lake, supported up by poles. About where the platform ended, the lake floor dropped off from a shallow bed to a deep underwater hole. It was the perfect place for campers who had done something unforgivable in the eyes of the Warden to be dragged. Dragged until they reached the end, where a heavy weight and chain were waiting to be attatched to the ankles of whoever was being sent to their maker.

When the camper was good and ready, a level would be pulled. A trapdoor underneath would open...

Camper's last thoughts would be the rush of air, the sudden splash of icey cold water, the feeling of pressure building up on their head as they sank, the panic as they became unable to breathe, and finally darkness which left their corpse to be eaten away by fish and crabs, swaying in the water in a graveyard of a hundred other children just like them.

Matt's heart filled with hatred when the man standing on the platform walked up, a beaming smile on his face.

"Welcome, children of Camp Corrections!" the Warden said. Dressed in a fine business suit, with perfectly combed brown hair, blinding white teeth, and a bracelet of diamonds and sapphires on his wrist, he couldn't look any more like Satan himself if he tried.

"I hope you all have had a very nice day," the Warden continued. "It's always good to get a lesson in obediance - and the consequences you recieve when you disobey the rules! I do wish you children would take these punishments more seriously. It hurts my heart to have to discipline you in this way,"

"Discipline is killing children?" Matt asked, so quietly no one could hear him.

"But I'm afraid that I do have to punish you. Think of this not just punishment for the disgraceful camper who brought shame on your dear loving Warden, but to the rest of you!"

Matt glanced around him. Everyone of the boys standing close were giving him these looks on the side. He knew what they were for.

"I hope the next time any of you consider killing one of our own counselors, you remember this lesson," the Warden preached, wagging his finger at the boys and girls standing in front of them like naughty schoolchildren. He snapped his fingers. "Let's get this show on the road! Bring Aaron Checkler forward!"

The crowd of children parted like the Red Sea, as two counselors appeared. In between them they were dragging a boy. He was bloody and beaten, and his hair was the same color as Matt's hair, and his eyes were the same color as Matt's eyes, and his face and body were identical to Matt's face and body...

When Aaron lifted up his head, he met his twin brother's eyes and smiled sadly.

Matt covered his mouth, to stop the vomit suddenly begging to be purged from his throat. He begged whatever God still gave a damn not to let him throw up, to save his brother.

Somewhere behind him, Asher's sobs rose in volume. Asher had grown close to Aaron since he had arrived. Aaron was Asher's only friend. Somewhere else, where the girls stood, he heard crying as well, but he couldn't tell who or why.

"Listen to those poor children crying, Aaron Checkler!" the Warden yelled. "That is you're fault, you horrible child!"

Matt's body began to shake.

Aaron was brought up to the platform, where the Warden looked him over closely. "Aaron Checkler," the man said, clicking his tongue dissaprovingly. "I am so dissapointed in your actions,"

Aaron was silent as the Warden lifted his chin up in his hand. The Warden stared him in the face for a moment, before flicking his hand and slapping Aaron.

"Shame on you for bringing such disgrace on our camp!" the Warden cried. But he was grinning, not bothering to hide his amusement.

Aaron didn't say a word. Matt wished he would - he wished he would scream, because if he didn't hear Aaron's voice again soon he would lose his cool.

"Counselors?" the Warden asked, pointing his finger to the end of the platform, where the trapdoor waited.

Matt watched as the counselors pushed Aaron forward, forcing him to walk on his own. None of the other campers were saying anything now. Aaron didn't try to fight the counselors, like many other children before him had. He didn't struggle once. Not even as the Warden himself bent down at the risk of wrinkling his shiny suit to attatch the weight to his ankle.

Aaron wasn't even looking at the Warden. He was staring up at the sky.

The Warden noticed. "Last time you'll ever see the big blue sky boy," he cackled. "Enjoy it!"

Finally, Aaron was ready. His wrists were tied. The weight was attatched. Matt was coming closer and closer to throwing himself to the ground, a scream itching at the back of his mouth.

"Any last words, Aaron Checkler?" the Warden asked.

Aaron looked across the end of the platform, at the giant group of campers watching him.

At his brother.

Their eyes met, Aaron opened his mouth to speak, and Matt remembered-

"Aaron...Aaron, what did you do?!"

"I didn't mean to...h-he was hurting me! Oh God, I killed him!"

"Matt, Aaron, what are...holy shit!"

"Derek, wait!"

"I didn't mean to! Matt, tell him!"

"Aaron, you...you're dead Aaron! Hey, somebody, over here!"

"Derek, wait!"

"Matt, Matt they're going to kill me! Oh, oh God they're going to-"

"No, no they're not Aaron,"

"Matt I killed him! How-"

"You didn't kill him Aaron...I did,"

"W-What? Matt, what are you-"

"Calm down Matt, it will all be okay,"

"W-Why are you calling ME Matt? What are you...oh no, no Matt don't do this!"

"Oh my Lord! Did you do this Aaron Checkler?"

"Yes, it was me,"

It always astounded their parents that Matt and Aaron looked completely identical.

The boy who was standing on the platform, calling himself Aaron, opened his mouth. "Goodbye Matt," the real Matt Checkler said.

The eyes of the boy watching his brother die, the eyes that belonged to the real Aaron Checkler, began to water.

"How sweet," the Warden said, rolling his eyes. He grinned as he reached for the lever. "Goodbye!"

Aaron's body trembled, as for a brief moment before the lever was pulled, Matt's entire face changed.

The look on the face of your brother right before he is about to die? That is a face no one ever forgets.


End file.
